Reading about the latest range of war traumas today, from the killing of Oxfam-affiliate water engineers by IDF, to the destruction of olive trees & a woman harvesting them by WB settlers, to many dozens lately slaughtered in the north...
It is painful to know this will only end when the extremists win.
So many *here*, as there, do not a flying F about the lives shattered.
They're just not *people* to those who think fulfillment of violent prophecy is the best solution for all.
Atheist note, though:
History will show this awful work to have been done by *secular* folk too.
There are some extreme Jewish traditions involved - messianics in N's far-right coalition government - & they're bolstered by a mass of US Christian Evangelicals who've been supporting this conflict for decades...
But Netanyahu is secular, & belongs to a movement that leverages Torah solely for territorial ambitions, with none of the grace of faith involved.
It is a sick, brutal thing to witness.
One final thought:
Folks here were boggling the other day at how immigrants to the US couldn't see the GOP for what it is.
But many in the West, often out of a "polite antisemitism" that fails to differentiate between Jewish cultural & Israeli political spectrums, have been living in cognitive dissonance: quick to identify & condemn far-right extremism on their home turf, while credulously supporting far-right extremism (*supported* by the GOP!) in another country.
So. That's how it happens.
Devout Jewish groups in Israel have also been standing up to messianic extremists and their secular counterparts.
From the outset of this war, there's been footage in Israel of police battering and otherwise harassing orthodox Jewish persons for speaking against this war.
You get to weird places as a society when a secular warmonger tells a person praying for peace Hitler should've taken their lot.
But that's because we're all human, & every group contains multitudes.
@MLClark @LiseL Yes! Throughout history, we've had groups associated with EVERY religion become violent oppressors.
Some Israelis (IDF) are now perpetrators of human rights violations and war crimes Many Jews around the world do not support these human rights violations.
Claiming that anyone who opposes the IDF's war crimes is an "antisemite" is a fascist ploy.